How fandoms create communities and support larger causes

“The power of the people is stronger than the people in power”, I first heard this quote when I was 14 at a youth climate change conference. I remember writing it down immediately and how it moved me at the time. Now, at 28, I still feel that quote to be true, but at times I find it difficult to find people power, to find voices that defy the systems and enrage, stir hope and organise the way I feel they should. I want to see and follow people who inspire through their actions and words, people that make me want to do my best for others everyday.

I know the difficulty of finding people or leaders who set that same fire in my chest that is a mix of agitation, anger and hope. And that is because we’re all tired. It feels like a lousy excuse, though. A privilege. 

A lousy excuse showing my privilege (and maybe yours too) that I can’t shout or march or show up or burn the system down today because I’m tired, because I worked all day, because I’m having a flare up, because I have a thousand other things that are also weighing on my mind and stealing my attention and energy when I should be rallying weekly. As a Blak woman, there’s also the load I’m carrying with news weekly of Mob having foul interactions with police and daily racism I hear and think about, the mental toll carrying all that takes without me even leaving the house.

It’s a privilege to even feel this type of guilt rather than to be one of the children in Palestine who are losing limbs and their families. 

As Vinay Krishnan says “there’s a genocide to stop and laundry to do”. 

Something I have found that gives me hope again is the way fandom spaces have responded to the genocide, and how they are supporting Palestine. It’s no secret that fandom spaces have always been spaces of political discourse, charity and organisation. 

Organisation in fandom spaces offer people of all ages and abilities the power to protest, make a stand and take action. In the modern era, it’s even easier to be able to do so without having to worry about accessibility or the stress of being at a rally can bring some.

Organisation in fandom spaces isn’t new, in the 60’s Star Trek fans would create their various forms of fan art and mail it to each other. Similarly, a global collection of Star Wars fans called ‘The 501st Legion’ use their shared passion and interest in Star Wars to band together against villainy (and do charitable things). Following in their footsteps came Fandom Forward (initially a Harry Potter fandom charity dubbed ‘The Harry Potter Alliance) who state “No singular story can hope to represent every time, every question, or every lived experience. This movement is for anyone who believes in the power of stories and the communities that love them to change the world”.

 In pop music, One Direction fans, ‘Directioners’ raised 2 million pounds for Red Nose Day, which along with other Directioner fundraising efforts inspired the boy band to start their own charity ‘Action/1D’ (although a google search for directioners’ fundraising efforts will also show you the time directioners’ tried to buy One Direction – a fun subversion of the fanfic standard where the reader is sold to them).

 Before streaming services music fans would burn CDs and record tapes to share music among other fans. If you thought a friend would like an album, you’d burn it for them. Such a simple act showed how you cared for that person, potentially giving them music they wouldn’t have otherwise have heard while also going against the capitalist standard of having to buy an album.

I still have, 15 years later, a CD mix a high school friend made for me with 20 songs she thought I’d like, or that made her think of me. It’s love in its purest form – thought and care.

A few years ago BTS fans (also known as ‘Army’) raised money for Koala joeys because member RM’s representative animal is a koala. At K-pop events in Korea it isn’t uncommon for fans to gift kilograms of rice to their favourite idols for the idols’ to then donate to a charity of their choosing.

K-pop fans are creating and sharing google drives so you can still listen to music you like and watch the content from the groups you like without the money from sales or streams going to zionist producers and label owners. A common phrase fans have been using is “morals over k-pop”.

K-pop company and entertainment label HYBE have come under fire in the past year for their ties with zionist producers, like Scooter Braun. 

Similarly, coca-cola, JYPE and some of their artists have also received criticism for the ‘k-wave’ cola and that label’s work with zionist artists and producers.

As a response, kpop fans decided to boycott HYBE products, boycott most coke products (especially the k-wave) and to boycott any songs with zionists listed in the production notes. Additionally, fans sent the musicians letters on social media apps used by K-idols like ‘weverse’ or ‘bubble’ asking them to cut ties with the zionists, for the entertainment labels to divest and for the artists themselves to use their platforms to speak out.

As a member of a kpop fandom for a HYBE group, Seventeen (fandom name being ‘Carats’), I’ve seen the fandom’s organising power and partaken in watching concert streams via someone’s twitter account or in a google drive rather than paying for a virtual ticket or watching the concert film in cinemas. 

It’s a nice return to the familiarity of sharing music – I miss the way a sharpie runs so smoothly over a disc after I’ve just burnt a CD. 

Online, Carats are consistently sharing resources and fundraising for Palestinian families, and sharing with each other ways to stay updated on the Seventeen latest music and content without giving them money.

My favourite community action taken by Carats was a fundraiser for Korean Children’s Day. Seventeen, for years, has made jokes about Children’s Day being the birthday of their youngest member, Dino. While many outside of Seventeen’s fandom have fallen for this prank, this year, a twitter account called ‘Carats4Palestine’ used the in-joke to fundraise for Palestinian Children. Dino’s Birthday Fundraiser successfully raised over $1000 USD. Unfortunately since the event, the account briefly deactivated for safety reasons and has since gone private after being attacked by Zionist twitter users, but the good work the account did cannot be undone.

It’s not just k-pop fandoms that have used their interests for the greater good. In anime and manga fandoms, and other fanfic writing fanbases, fan writers and artists are partaking in various ‘gacha/gotcha for gaza’. In these fan organised events, writers and artists volunteer to create fanworks based on prompts provided by other fans who have donated to Palestinian gofundme or other fundraisers.

The gotchas were started by the fanbase for novel series Heaven Official’s Blessing (aka Tiān Guān Cì Fú), who, through their compassion and shared love of interested raised $102,253 USD and have since started a new gotcha event, this time for Congo.

Haikyuu’s fandom (a lighthearted sports anime about volleyball) raised $2671 and the gotcha by Genshin Impact fans (a popular open world rpg) raised $5000. The events have been so widespread from anime fanbases, danmei fanbases, live action fanbases like 9-1-1 and DC and marvel fandoms and now have their own page on fanlore wiki. 

I won’t tell you what fandom or what prompts, but I’ve partaken in a gotcha event as both a writer and a donator and it feels good and fun to be able to create some lighthearted fanworks while doing good at the same time!

I’m not going to lie though, it’s still disheartening to hop onto Twitter and see genuinely the worst news in the world and then a joke tweet about brat summer immediately after. It’s still something I’m trying to negotiate, and I have no doubt you may be too. I still have days where it feels like I’ve doom scrolled too much, and gotten too angry with the inaction or violent decisions made by people in power but then looking away and putting my phone down feels like a privilege, it feels like something I shouldn’t do when there’s people who need our time, voices and support. 

These types of community organisation are so important, especially when you’re from a minority or marginalised community. A lot of the fans taking part in the Gotchas are queer people.

Here in so-called Australia community care and organisation has been key in protesting the genocide, standing with Palestine and it’s people and looking out for eachother. University students set up encampments on campus when their university’s money and resources were going to weapons for Israel. This was a case of community organisation via social media, with various ‘students4palestine’ instagram accounts popping up created for specific universities. 

Similarly, social media has been used as a tool for mutual aid through accounts like Dreamtime Aroha and Geddit Here who use their platforms to highlight the issues with our current systems while helping community members be able to pay bills and get food. 

Fandoms show consistently, across genres, that the power of people works and that it’s possible to organise and mobilise people. It revs me up and sets my heart ablaze to think about these things and see what people are doing, but at the same time It feels awful that at a time like this the most powerful action I see is being taken by people like me who have a love for their chosen work of fiction, some time, a few spare dollars and a conscience. They provide a space where we can show our humanity and compassion for others while doing what we love.